


Midnight Tension!

by brumalbreeze



Category: Twisted-Wonderland (Video Game)
Genre: Idiots in Love, M/M, Making Out, Sexual Tension, Shut Up Kiss, idiots in general
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:27:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23714377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brumalbreeze/pseuds/brumalbreeze
Summary: Ace was going to be honest with himself: he had a crush on Deuce.It wasn’t as if he hadn’t had crushes before so he knew what one felt like, but he just didn’t expect to develop one so quickly, especially on the guy who dropped an entire cauldron on him the first time they met. He stopped mid-way to taking a bite out of his toast. Now that he thought of it, was that seriously how they met? He shook his head in resignation and shoved the rest of his toast into his mouth, betrayed by his own fickle heart.(No plot here, just idiots being idiots and the classic "Shut up!"/"Make me" trope in one neat little fic.)
Relationships: Deuce Spade/Ace Trappola
Comments: 21
Kudos: 257





	Midnight Tension!

**Author's Note:**

> The "true" title of this fic is actually 深夜テンション！ to match the titling convention of the game itself. Lol
> 
> Dedicated to my always lovely friend, [Bianka](https://twitter.com/celintuomi), for getting me into this mess of a game. This would never have happened without you!

Ace could hear a buzzing noise that felt both close and far at the same time. He wanted to investigate the sound or at least stop it, but he couldn’t seem to make his body move. His limbs were heavy, and his consciousness fuzzy and distant.

An annoying trilling joined the buzzing, and he groaned. The sharp, intruding noises cut through the black unknown in his mind and brought an unwanted clarity to his consciousness. Seconds—or perhaps hours—later, a disjointed melody and another buzzing joined the faraway cacophony.

His chest and stomach expanded, he exhaled, and that was when he finally managed to open his eyes.

“Ugh…” He slapped his hand down on the space beside his pillow and grabbed his phone, which was still buzzing in short, angry bursts. He didn’t even register the numbers on the screen before swiping it to turn off his alarm. As usual, his sleep didn’t feel long enough, and morning had come far too early.

After dropping his phone next to his pillow, Ace rolled on his back and threw an arm over his eyes. He probably could have drifted back to sleep if there weren’t three other alarms going off in the room, so after lying there for a handful of seconds, he gave up and pushed his blankets off.

By the time he sat up in bed, one hand rubbing his face and the other under his pajama shirt and scratching his back, two of his other roommates had likewise woken up and switched off their alarms. The fourth one, however, continued buzzing.

Sluggishly, Ace stood, stretched, and sauntered over to the owner of the last alarm.

“Deuce,” he called out as he approached his friend’s four-poster bed. The lump on it didn’t budge at all. “ _Deuce_ ,” he said more firmly.

“Morning…” a voice called out behind him.

Ace turned around to see his other two roommates waving lethargically at him as they headed out the room and to the bathroom area.

“G’morning. See ya later,” he waved back. He watched them exit and close the door before turning back to the pile of blankets in front of him. The buzzing was still going.

With a heavy sigh, he shoved his arm under Deuce’s pillow, fished his phone out, and turned off the alarm. He heard Deuce make a guttural noise at the jarring motion, but that apparently wasn’t enough to wake him up, so Ace resorted to grabbing his pillow and yanking the entire thing from beneath his head.

That action elicited a jolt from beneath the blankets. The lump flailed about as Deuce rolled over in a panic to see what had attacked him. When his eyes landed on Ace standing over him, he groaned and pulled his blankets over his head. “Damn you,” he grumbled, his voice muffled by the sheets.

“Heh. Took you long enough to wake up,” he grinned, still holding Deuce’s pillow triumphantly.

The pile stopped moving, and Deuce didn’t answer him.

Ace stood there for a few seconds before frowning. “Hey,” he called out, “you didn’t fall asleep again, did you?” The seconds stretched on, and his grin turned into a scowl. “Get your ass out of bed!” he yelled, smacking the approximate vicinity of where he knew Deuce’s head was for all he was worth.

His assault was met with garbled yelling, a flurry of blanketed floundering, and the reemergence of Deuce’s messy bedhead.

“Stop—stop that already!” he yelled, blindly grabbing at his pillow, which Ace was still whaling him with. Their struggle was as short-lived as it was foolish, and at the end of it, Deuce was sitting up, his face like thunder and his pillow hugged possessively against his chest. “Don’t you know any gentler ways to wake people up?” he pouted and rubbed his face sleepily into the side of his pillow.

“Just be glad I even bother waking you up every morning,” Ace replied, already heading back to his bed. “And that I don’t throw you out the window every day.” He crouched down to grab his shower caddy. Breakfast was waiting, and he was starving. “C’mon, hurry and get up already.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Deuce groused as he tossed his pillow aside and tried to pat down the cowlick on the back of his head.

A few minutes later, and both of them had finished brushing their teeth and washing their faces. The bathroom area was full of other people getting ready for the day, though the crowd was already starting to thin out as the early-risers finished their preparations and left.

Ace was in the middle of painting his trademark heart on his face when Deuce’s rather violent under-the-breath muttering caught his attention. He had noticed it from the earlier days of their acquaintance then friendship, but Deuce seemed to have a habit of talking to himself a lot. It wasn’t annoying so much as it was amusing, since the mumbling seemed unconscious most of the time, and he more often than not, Deuce would end up blurting out his real thoughts. At the moment, he was cursing his stubborn cowlick with all his being. Ace snickered and carefully swiped on the other side of his heart.

He was humming to himself as he put the final touches on his hair when his eyes glimpsed Deuce’s reflection in the mirror, and he paused.

After finally winning his daily battle with his hair, Deuce had begun painting his usual spade on his face. His eyebrows were deeply furrowed as he carefully moved the brush over his skin. The thick, opaque pigment applied smoothly onto his cheek under Deuce’s steady hand, and he was done with one side of his trademark suit in no time. He let out a small noise of victory and squinted at his mirrored reflection with one eye, apparently very pleased with his handiwork.

Ace blinked before glancing away. He turned back to his mirror and looked resolutely not at his own face. Instead, he focused on twisting the ends of his hair into soft points and trying not to mind the dryness in his throat. He hadn’t meant to stare, but the look of pure concentration on Deuce’s face had captivated his attention.

“I’m gonna head back first,” he said, rinsing the hair gel from his hands and grabbing his shower caddy without drying them.

“Huh?” Deuce was taken off guard by the sudden declaration and turned to look at him with his right eye still shut. “Oh, yeah, sure,” he said. He nodded absentmindedly at Ace and returned to painting his spade.

Ace gnawed at his bottom lip the entire trip back to their room, while changing from his pajamas and into his school uniform, and as he did up his tie.

He was trying to think, but if he was being honest with himself, he didn’t really want to.

* * *

Ace was going to be honest with himself: he had a crush on Deuce.

It wasn’t as if he hadn’t had crushes before so he knew what one felt like, but he just didn’t expect to develop one so quickly, especially on the guy who dropped an entire cauldron on him the first time they met. He stopped mid-way to taking a bite out of his toast. Now that he thought of it, was that seriously how they met? He shook his head in resignation and shoved the rest of his toast into his mouth, betrayed by his own fickle heart.

“Seriously, for how ‘nice’ he keeps claiming he is, you’d think he would’ve at least helped us clean the dorm a bit. Grim and I’ve working on it, but on top of all the miscellaneous chores and ‘requests’ he keeps dropping on us…” Yuu grumbled while eating.

“Well, at least it’s less dusty than it was before,” Deuce said around a mouthful of scrambled eggs.

Breakfast in the cafeteria was in full swing. On their way over, Ace and Deuce had met up with Yuu and Grim, and the four of them were hunkered down at their usual table. Ace had been spacing out for the past few minutes, but the other three were engaged in a lively conversation.

“Hey, Ace,” Grim called out, his wide, blue eyes flickering between Ace’s face and his plate. “You gonna eat that last sausage or not?” His paws gripped the side of the table and he licked his lips hungrily while waiting for a response.

“What, this one?” he replied, stabbing the sausage with his fork. He made a show of offering it to Grim before snapping it back. “Yeah, actually. I am.” He chomped off half of it in one bite and grinned, ignoring the shrill cry of indignation from Grim.

Across the table, Yuu snickered. Next to him, Deuce stared.

“What?” he asked, frowning at the look he was receiving.

“You got crumbs on your shirt.”

“Wha— Damn it…” He brushed his hand across the front of his shirt, and a few breadcrumbs tumbled off. “There. That good?”

Deuce licked a stray bit of scrambled egg from the side of his own mouth and shook his head. “No, it’s closer to your neck.” He tapped the side of his shirt to indicate where he was talking about.

Ace tried again, but wherever the crumbs were, they were too close to his throat for him to see when he looked down.

“Here, let me get them for you,” Deuce finally said.

“Yeah, sure.” Ace tilted his head up for him.

Deuce’s fingers were dry and warm as they brushed against Ace’s throat, and he swallowed.

“There,” he said casually, dusting his fingers over Ace’s plate.

Ace rubbed his hand over his neck where Deuce’s fingers had been. “…Thanks.”

“Grim! Hey, get your damn paws off my bacon, you bastard!”

Ace’s hesitant thanks was drowned out by Deuce’s outrage and Grim’s yowling as the two of them wrestled each other across the table. Yuu let out a yell as Grim knocked over a glass of juice, and they reached out just in time to catch it.

“What do you two think you’re doing, raising such a ruckus in the cafeteria at this hour?!”

Deuce paled and Grim’s fur stood on end as a loud voice bellowed at them from across the room.

The four of them looked over in the direction of the voice and saw scores of students scrambling out of the way as Riddle charged straight toward them.

“Oh,” Deuce said, “shit.”

* * *

“Yeah, well, I mean, you pretty much deserved that,” Ace said, not quite sympathetically.

“ _I_ deserved it? Grim was the one who was trying to steal my breakfast! As if you wouldn’t have done the exact same thing!” Deuce fumed.

“Eh, well…” He shrugged and patted Deuce on the shoulder. “Anyway, at least he didn’t put a collar on you this time. I think you got off pretty easy with just having to write an essay of repent!”

“You want to write it for me then?” Deuce glared at him resentfully.

“Yeah, no,” he snorted. “But you can use the whole weekend to write it! Isn’t that great?”

Deuce growled but said no more.

Classes were over, and the two of them were going back to their dorm. They had received homework in almost every class, and Deuce was complaining about how he had to do all of it _and_ the essay Riddle demanded him to write as punishment for disturbing the peace at breakfast.

Ace looked at Deuce’s sulking expression, and his mouth opened without him thinking. “Hey, look,” he said, nudging Deuce with his elbow. “I won’t write the essay for you, but I can at least keep you company while you agonize over it.”

“Wow, great,” Deuce replied and rolled his eyes. “Just what I wanted. Another person to sit next to me while I suffer.” His eyes sparkled and the corners of his mouth quirked up in defiance of his dry words.

Ace laughed.

* * *

“Five thousand words? Five _thousand_? Dammit, if he had given me a page limit, I could have at least cheated and made the text bigger or something…” Deuce mumbled, tapping furiously on his laptop.

Ace and Deuce had been out in the lounge for hours, working on the homework they had left until the last minute. Ace was toiling on the last few pages of his history homework while Deuce continued battling with his essay of repent. It was clear that he was growing increasingly frustrated, judging from the frequency and ire of his muttering. It hadn’t been as noticeable earlier when there were still others milling in the lounge, but now that they were the only ones left, it was the only thing Ace could hear. The emptiness of the room as well as the hush of night made Deuce’s complaints sound even louder.

His own level of concentration was wearing incredibly thin since they had been working for so long, and he really just wanted to finish things and call it a night already. However, with all of Deuce’s furious grumbling, he found himself unable to understand anything he was reading. He must have read the same paragraph five times now. Or at least he had run his eyes over the same paragraph at least five times now.

“Dude, can you cut that out?” he sighed wearily. Ace ruffled his hair and looked up from his textbook.

Deuce snapped at him from behind his laptop. “What? You got a problem with me?”

There was a tinge of unhinged wildness in his eyes, and his voice had gained a low, rough purr that rolled his r’s into growls. With the snarl on his face, Deuce looked more like a resident of Savanaclaw than Heartslabyul.

Ace frowned, realizing that Deuce had completely reverted to his delinquent mode. Normally, he would have tried to wave it off or calm Deuce down, but with all the fatigue and stress that was straining on his last thread of patience, he couldn’t hold back any more.

He growled back. “Yeah, I do. Your damn muttering’s distracting me to hell, and I can’t finish my homework, alright?”

A sneer pulled at Deuce’s mouth, and he bristled at Ace’s words. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize the entire lounge belonged to you, Your Highness. Why don’t you go sit somewhere else then? There’s only the whole fucking room to use.”

“Why do I have to move? Do I look like I want to carry all my shit to another table? If you would just _shut up_ , everything would be solved.”

“Why don’t _you_ shut up, then?”

Ace pushed his chair back and half-stood at the unreasonable demand. “What the fuck, that doesn’t even make sense! I literally wasn’t even saying anything! You were the one who was having a grand ol’ time complaining to yourself!”

“What, now I can’t even complain about shit?”

Ace clutched at his head in disbelief. “That’s—! That is literally not what I said! Just shut up for, like, two minutes, won’t you?”

“Try and make me, bastard!”

Ace’s heart was in his throat. He stood and grabbed the back of Deuce’s chair, shoving it until he had half-pushed it out from under the table.

Deuce yelped and snarled at the violent gesture. “What are you doin—”

Ace’s body was animated by pure nerves and adrenaline at this point. He grabbed the arm of the chair and accidentally slammed his shin against the hard wood of the ornate seat as he shoved his knee next to Deuce’s on the cushion, but he ignored the sharp pain. All that mattered was that he had successfully trapped Deuce in his seat.

“Shutting you up, asshole,” Ace breathed harshly. He was shaking, but his distant logical mind was thankfully that Deuce’s usual fight response hadn’t been triggered and he had frozen instead. After seeing how dirty Deuce fought, Ace had little confidence he could win in a one-on-one battle with him in close quarters. He leaned menacingly over Deuce, pulse pounding loudly in his chest and throat.

“What do you…” Deuce blinked rapidly, his spitfire rage sputtering uncertainly at the new development. His teal eyes darted from Ace’s intense gaze to his lips, and Ace saw his throat bob. “Mean?” The last wisp of Deuce’s sentence cracked, and his tongue darted out to wet the seam of his lips.

Ace forced himself to move before his mind could realize what kind of repercussions he would have to face, closed his eyes, and he pressed his mouth against Deuce’s. The kiss was awkward due to the angle they were at, and it certainly wasn’t the most pleasant experience, since Ace had misjudged of distance between them and essentially slammed their faces together. Despite the uncomfortable sensation of having his lips crushed against Deuce’s, it was enough to send a thrill through Ace.

An eternity passed in the span of four seconds, and Ace moved away.

“You…” Deuce stared at him with blown pupils and pink cheeks. His hand went to his mouth, and he pressed his fingers against it in shock. The remainder of his sentence died.

“There,” Ace grinned with fake bravado, “that shut you up.” With that, he began to move shakily away. He hadn’t thought about what he would do after impulsively kissing Deuce, but his current goal was to get away, preferably as fast as possible, before he was murdered.

At that moment, Deuce furrowed his eyebrows and frowned. “Hey—”

Before he had a chance to react, Ace felt something yank on his neck and trap him in place. Deuce pulled harder on his tie, and Ace’s already precarious balance crumbled. He was about to yell from the abrupt pitch forward, but he was silenced when Deuce kissed him. His eyes widened and his body froze when he felt Deuce touch his lips with his tongue.

When he didn’t respond in time, Deuce pulled on his tie again and licked him more insistently.

With a resolute mental, “Fuck it,” Ace clenched his eyes, steadied himself on the chair a bit more, and opened his mouth.

“Nn…” Deuce made a noise of approval and ran the tip of his tongue against the soft, slick edge right behind Ace’s lips.

The sensation was ticklish and he wanted to shirk away, but he endured it and pressed his own tongue forward. Deuce’s tongue was soft and gentle against his, and his body grew hot as they licked at each other experimentally. It was warm and wet and completely bewildering.

Ace realized what they were doing, even as he felt Deuce’s left fingers trace the back of his nape before cradling it and his right hand loosen from his tie and tug on one of his belt loops, but it somehow didn’t feel _real_. It didn’t feel real when Deuce somehow managed to coax him fully into the narrow chair so he was straddling his lap, and it didn’t feel real when Deuce pushed his tongue boldly into his mouth and claimed it completely.

His head pounded, dimly aware that he was making noises he was too embarrassed to admit he could make, but he couldn’t think straight. All he wanted to do was drown in the sensation of being devoured and respond in fervent kind. Judging from the noises Deuce was making, he had the same idea in mind.

Deuce’s fingertips slid up his nape and into the fringes of his hairline to massage at his scalp, while still moving his tongue sensually against Ace’s. Ace let Deuce draw his tongue into his mouth and suck on it. The sensation knocked the wind out of him.

“Hn, hah—“ He broke away for air, but he barely took a breath in before Deuce leaned forward with a growl and tugged on his lower lip with his teeth. Ace no longer had any idea what he had gotten himself into, but he wasn’t going to complain. A wet swipe went across his captured lip, and Deuce sucked on him again. The soft pinch of his sharp teeth on him made him groan.

Now, Deuce’s hand was buried deep in his hair, and he was cradling the back of Ace’s head fully. He applied pressure to him and made him bow down just enough for him to plant a firm, closed-mouth kiss on his wet lips.

They broke apart with a gasp. Both of them stared at each other for a suspended second. Then, Deuce released his hold on his hair and cleared his throat. His face was completely red and his eyes were everywhere except on Ace.

Ace leaned back shakily and ran the back of his hand across his wet mouth. “What… what the fuck,” he wheezed.

“Sorr—” Deuce began, but he stopped himself. He glanced nervously at Ace from beneath his lashes and cleared his throat again. He was still resting the fingertips of his right hand ever so lightly on the side of Ace’s thigh. “I… like you.”

The confession was so unexpected that Ace barked out a laugh and startled Ace. “No shit!”

“Damn you! You were the one who—” Deuce flushed red and went on the defensive.

Before he could say any more, Ace grabbed his face in both his hands and kissed him. Deuce was stunned into silence when he drew back, and Ace grinned. “You know, this could be a really handy way to shut you up.”

Deuce snapped out of his daze and growled without heat, “ _You_ shut up.”

Ace leaned down again, staring into Deuce’s eyes challengingly. “Make me,” he said lowly.

“Gladly,” Deuce countered with a cocky smirk. But instead of going for his mouth, he buried his face against Ace’s neck and sucked and nibbled lightly on the soft spot behind his ear.

“Damn, what the fu…” Ace shuddered, losing his grip on the chair and reality. But before he completely lost it, there was something he had to say first. “Mngh, dammit… I—I like you too,” he rasped breathily.

A puff of warm air went over his wet skin. “No shit,” Deuce smiled and licked his neck hotly.

* * *

“Hmm. Alright. This looks like at least five thousand words. I’ll accept this now, but don’t think you’re off the hook yet. If the content of your essay isn’t good enough, you can be sure I’ll be assigning you another.” Riddle flipped through the small stack of papers Deuce had handed him and nodded approvingly.

“Yes, sir!” Deuce answered clearly, standing at attention.

Ace was standing next to him, idly looking at his nails as he waited for Deuce and Riddle to finish their business. They were on their way to breakfast when they ran into Riddle, Trey, and Cater in the lounge, so Deuce decided to take the opportunity to turn in his paper.

“I should commend you for being able to finish this promptly. _However_ ,” Riddle went on, crossing his arms and looking sternly at Deuce, “I must remind you of Rule #28 of Her Highness, the Queen of Hearts, ‘You shall not stay in the lounge past midnight, barring special occasions and emergencies’!”

Color rose faintly to Deuce’s cheeks and Ace stilled.

“Y-yes, sir!” Deuce replied.

“Furthermore, even if it _were_ a ‘special occasion,’ you must be aware that the lounge is public space and anyone can access it regardless of what time it is. For example, if the late night patrol group were making their roun—”

“Ahem!” Trey cleared his throat loudly behind Riddle, his own face looking a bit pink. “Riddle, I think it’s about time we went to the cafeteria. It’d be bad if we didn’t make there in time to meet Rule #72 of Her Highness, the Queen of Hearts…” His voice trailed off as he urged Riddle away from Ace and Deuce and toward the hallway.

Cater followed after the two of them leisurely but before he left, he turned around. “Heh. Later, you two.” He winked at them and waved airily, his smile a little too cheeky for Ace and Deuce’s comfort.

The two of them stood there, faces completely red.

Suddenly, Riddle burst back into the lounge with Trey running after him. “Hurry up and get to the cafeteria unless you two want a collar around your necks that badly!”

“ _Yes, sir_!”

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, who would've thought I'd come back to writing after a 1.5 year hiatus! And for a completely random fandom out of nowhere! Ha ha ha! I sure didn't! ........And yet, here I am.
> 
> Anyway, I had a lot of fun writing this silly little thing, especially since I hadn't been so creatively fired up about a fandom/pairing in so long. Knowing my own fickle self, I can't promise I'll create any more fics, but here's to hoping! In the meantime, you can always follow me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/algidwind) and see what I'm yelling about. I might even do some drawings of these two if we're lucky! =D
> 
> I hope you all enjoyed this and that you're keeping safe in these uncertain times.


End file.
